1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to novel use of small molecules, particularly, use of isothiocyanates as lead compounds for manufacturing a medicament or a pharmaceutical composition for treating cancer.
2. Description of Related Art
Cancer has become the major cause of death in most countries. Currently, there are four standard methods of treatment for cancer: surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, and biologic therapy; among them, surgery and chemotherapy remain the most adopted means for cancer treatment.
Complete removal of the cancer without damage to the rest of the body is the goal of the treatment, sometimes this can be achieved by surgery, but the propensity of cancers to invade adjacent tissue or to spread to distant sites by microscopic metastasis often limits its effectiveness. Chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with drugs that can destroy cancer cells. In current usage, the term “chemotherapy” usually refers to cytotoxic drugs which affect rapidly dividing cells in general. However, in some occasions, cancerous cells develop resistance or are insensitive toward one or more cytotoxic drugs, thereby rendering these drug(s) useless for the treatment of cancer. Hence, many attempts have been made to locate other effective drugs or means for successful treatment of cancer, especially drug resistant- or chemotherapeutic agent insensitive-cancer. Further, some cancers have poor prognosis or are insensitive to current chemotherapeutic agents, such as pancreatic cancer, non-small-cell lung cancer or esophageal cancer.
Therefore, there is a need in the related art an agent or a compound that may be useful for the treatment of above-described cancers, including drug-resistance cancers or cancers that are insensitive to current chemotherapeutic agents.